A number of different surface cleaning devices utilizing adhesive, tacky, attractive, or sticky surfaces, i.e. having “positive capture”, have been developed for cleaning various surfaces. The majority of these devices include a single roller having a sheet of material with a tackified outer surface disposed on the exterior of the roller. The adhesive on the roller is generally capable of picking up lint, dust, and other debris on the surface as the roller is contacted with the surface. As the roller moves along the surface, the tackified surface contacts and adheres to the lint, dust, and debris on the surface, thereby lifting the debris off of the surface and onto the roller.
However, with regard to cleaning devices of this type, the roller has a limited number of uses. This is because the adhesive material on the exterior of the roller must be continually cleaned or replaced based on the amount of debris that adheres to the roller as it moves across the surface.
In order to overcome this shortcoming, other cleaning devices have been developed that include a pair of rollers. A continuous web of an adhesive sheet material is connected between the rollers. In these devices, the adhesive sheet material can be advanced from a web supply roller toward a web take-up roller as the device is used in order to provide a number of sequential clean sections of the adhesive sheet web when the previous section has collected a sufficient amount of lint, dust, or debris to render the previous section no longer usable. Because the adhesive sheet is continually moved onto the take-up roll and off of the supply roll, the device can readily present a clean section of the adhesive sheet for use in cleaning a surface.
Examples of devices of this type include Hester, U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,075. This patent discloses a lint pickup device that includes a pair of rollers formed as a supply roller and a take-up roller that are disposed within a cartridge and which support a continuous web of an adhesive sheet utilized to clean carpets, rugs, and other surfaces of lint.
Blum et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,806, discloses another device of this type including a tacky roller for improved surface cleaning in which a continuous sheet of a tackified web is applied to a surface to clean the surface. The web is supported by a pair of rollers disposed within the device and by a number of contact rollers which maintain the web in contact with the surface to be cleaned as the web moves continuously between the rollers. The device also includes a brush that contacts and provides additional cleaning to the surface.
Still another cleaning device of this type is shown in Plankenhorn, U.S. Pat. No. 6,859,976, which discloses a cleaning device with continuous action wiping and sweeping having a continuous web of an adhesive sheet material connected between a supply roller and a take-up roller. The web of the adhesive material is advanced from the supply roller onto the take-up roller by a variety of mechanisms, in order to provide the device with a continually clean tackified portion of the web for cleaning purposes.
Shizuno et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,137,165, discloses a cleaning device with an adhesive roll cleaner having a single-sided adhesive sheet wound around a core tube into a roll with the adhesive side facing out. Here the adhesive of the adhesive sheet comprises a hot-melt adhesive, solvent adhesive, or aqueous adhesive. The adhesive is applied to the base sheet at a coating weight of 15 to 50 g/m2 and a silicone release agent is applied to a back side of the adhesive sheet. The adhesive roll maintains an outer diameter within a range of 22 to 40 mm from start to end of use and the roll has a width of 180 to 300 mm.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,676,877 to Policicchio et al. is a cleaning implement comprising a sweeper head with a removable collection bin with an adjustable height and an opening for receiving debris. The sweeper head has a rotating member for projecting loose soils from the surface being cleaned into the collection bin and a disposable cleaning substrate removably attachable to the collection bin.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 7,793,377 to Knopow et al. discloses an adhesive web having two take-up rollers.
Each of the above-discussed references is now expressly incorporated herein by reference.
In the present invention, it is desirable to develop a cleaning device utilizing one or more positive capture elements that may be automatically refreshed or easily removed and replaced with a minimum of waste materials generated. It is also desirable that the soils and other debris be effectively captured so that they are not subsequently dispersed onto the cleaned area.